Three Pro-Tips for Staying Hydrated on the Trails

Water. Probably one of the poorest planned and most important aspects of the 10 essentials when we go out for a day hike.

Don't get me wrong, I know almost all of us grab a water bottle (or two?) before we head out, but do we really think about our hydration much more than this:

"I've got some water; I'll drink it when I'm thirsty. I hope it lasts."

A recent Twitter conversation with friend Limax7 prompted me to share three simple pro-tips to make sure you are well hydrated on your hikes, regardless of where they are or what season it is.

Tip #1 - Pre-Hydrate

Uh, what does that even mean? It's as simple as it sounds. Drink some water BEFORE the hike. 

Top advice from professional trainers, athletes, and first aid folks is consistent on this point. Plan on your morning before your hike to drink about 1 litre (1 quart, or 34 fluid ounces) of water in small amounts. We'll talk about the drawbacks to "chugging" water in tip #2. 

This is super important as you'll be losing fluids through the day and this way you are off to a solid start on staying well hydrated.

Tip #2 - Bring the Right Amount for Your Day

Exactly how much water you will need for any hike will of course be affected by certain variables - heat, duration of the hike, incline of the hike, your personal health, etc. 

Most medical professionals agree that people should drink 2 litres (~1/2 gallon, 2 quarts, or 67 fluid ounces) of water per day. So use that as a baseline, minimal amount to bring on a day hike.

I get it though - water is HEAVY! Consider "caching" water along your route to have it available on your way back and not have to carry it the full distance. Have a .5 or 1 litre water bottle tucked behind a tree or under some rocks (sealed tightly, and with no flavouring so as not to attract animals to it) then drop a waypoint on your GPSr or phone.

Split your daily water carry between members of your team, and consider using lighter containers for the water such as collapsible water bottles, or maybe even a hydration pack. The small amounts of weight & space it saves can end up making a big difference.

On a hot day, or a longer hike, add another 1-2 litres to your daily carry of water. You can cache a litre at the "half way back" point of your hike (of course, not if you are hiking a loop!). 

Ultimately, you need to be the best judge of how much water to carry but you will rarely regret carrying too much.

Lastly, don't "chug" your water. It's tempting and we've all done it. But you are far better off to "sip" your water at regular intervals, perhaps every 10 minutes as a guide. On a hot day day or at high elevations your water intake should equal approximately 1 litre per hour. 

So doing the math, if you are going on a 4 hour hike on a hot day, you should pre-hydrate, and then carry approximately 4 litres of water! I know - that's a lot of weight!

Tip #3 - Have a Back-Up Plan

Plan B, right? So what happens if you didn't bring enough water? We won't get into the details of heat stroke, heat exhaustion, dehydration, muscle cramps... you likely know all this. But be aware, running out of water is serious business. 

So what's your Plan B? Essentially what I'm getting at is how will you get water while you are out on the trail?

Try and figure out if there are natural or man-made water sources along your planned route. Hiking trail review sites or geocaching logs are good sources of intel - don't rely on the fact that your topo maps show a creek or pond!

In the event there is no water source on your hike, then make certain you bring MORE than enough with you. 

Myself and many of my hiking friends always carry a LifeStraw with us. It's a great "Plan B" because it filters the Cryptosporidium and Giardia from natural water sources. The beauty of these types of filters is they are reusable, inexpensive, effective, and light to carry.

If you are planning a longer hike, consider a pump or bottle-press type filter such as Katadyn products. These are a bit bulkier and heavier, but can process larger amounts of water that you can bottle/store for later use.

Get Home Safe!

So that's my quick three pro-tips you can use to make sure you avoid any issues with hydration on your geocaching or other hikes. 

One last note - don't get tricked by Winter or cool Spring/Fall weather! Your body needs the same base amount of water regardless of the temperature and climate, so don't fall into the trap of "it's cold out so I only need 500ml for a day of hiking." 

So that all said, go outside and "cache safely, and cache often!"



LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures are written by Jay Kennedy, outdoor adventurer and photo-journalist. All content is affiliated with the Wander Network. Experience his adventures on Twitter and Instagram by following @LANMonkeyGC, and subscribing to LANMonkey on YouTube. He is also a regular co-host of the Caching in the Northwest geocaching podcast. 

Lab Caches - FYI

There's been a lot of discussion - and frankly, a lot of confusion - around Groundspeak's (geocaching.com) introduction of Lab Cache type.  The Lab Cache type was introduced at this years Block Party (August 17th, Seattle WA) with a lot of fanfare but also a lot of confusion.

Prior to the event, Groundspeak let us all know that a "new cache type" was going to be introduced. Hey, they wanted to amp up the excitement and attendance for the Block Party, and that was successful. Subsequently, folks arrived, but then the confusion kicked in. Depending upon where you were when, and to whom you spoke, different messages (unofficial, of course) made their way around about what the deal was with Lab Caches.

Some more experienced 'cachers who'd attended the Block Party previously made assumptions (reasonable ones) based on their past experiences. New cachers tried to grasp the concept and got pieces of it. Other than the "keynote" at the event and a discussion forum posting, there was little official and consistent communication from Groundspeak on the topic.


For example; while at the event I recorded a LMGA episode on the Lab Caches to try and explain what I currently understood - by the time the video was in post production (1 week later) there was more information that I used to make some corrections in the video. Subsequent to that, deeper "research" into the Lab Caches has provided me enough information to write this blog entry - so the first thing to be cognizant of is that this is an evolving concept.

Here are three key things to help you understand Lab Caches.

1. This is a test - this is only a test. Lab Caches are, in essence, a real-world labratory to test out new ideas for geocache types; and the place(s) Groundspeak has decided to use for their "alpha testing" or lab work, are the Mega Events. This means that if you are jonesin' to get a Lab Caches icon in your profile, you'll need to attend a Mega that has announced it will host Lab Caches.

2. They count (sort of).  Lab Caches give you smilies, and count in your over-all cache finds, but

there's a catch, my statistically oriented friends - there are no logs on geocaching.com associated with these caches as they are intended as tests and aren't available after the events. Therefore applications like GSAK won't be able to add them from your "My Finds" pocket query, or from directly querying your account. The work around is to manually create the caches in your GSAK DB as waypoints, and set them to "found" on the date you found them/attended the Mega Event.

3. They're not my type.  Lab Caches aren't one specific type of cache; this is a category for Groundspeak to use to try out all kinds of different ideas (remember "Challenges?") for what might make a new cache type. So each event that has Lab Caches may have something completely different, and Groundspeak is really looking for your feedback on those caches. Attendees from the 2013 Block Party who tried out the "Adventures" Lab Caches were subsequently sent a link to a survey asking for our feedback on these.

As always, I'm really interested in your thoughts & opinions around Lab Caches, and geocaching topics in general, so feel free to post your comments to this blog or to the Lab Cache FYI video on our YouTube channel.

Cache safely, and cache often.

Manning Park FTF Adventure

Thanks for your patience between blog posts - we had a major technology melt-down about a month ago and lost all our upcoming content. :(  In the meantime, we've been having some amazing geocaching adventures and recording new content that we'll start sharing again now.
First up is our recent overnight to E.C. Manning Provincial Park where the LANMonkey's and Manta Rayz decided to try a 21km return hike in an attempt to get a First to Find (FTF) on a cache (Oh Brother) at the summit of First Brother mountain.


 Manta Rayz, Piggy, and the LANMonkeys headed along the trails with LOTS of water and bug spray - both mandatory for this hike. Up at just over 2,000m we enjoyed the views from N49 09.166 W120 46.034 and then continued along to where Fat Dog Creek/Fat Dog Trail connect. We hadn't really heard of Fat Dog Trail before in our years of hiking the area, but it's apparently a cross-country ski trail, without a trailhead marker at the junction, but it was marked on our GPSr maps. There is also an alpine pond nearby at N49 09.413 W120 46.381 that likely has a name but we just call it "Fat Dog Alpine Pond."

So we made it to the trail junction for First Brother, and Manta Rayz was not impressed by the last kilometer ahead of us. At this point we were at about 2,100m and had at least another 100m vertical to go. Up we slowly pushed amidst some nasty horseflies and deer/blackflies, along the ridge with an amazing view down to a small lake, and then some tricky rock scrambles in the last bit; we had to push Piggy up one or two spots and assist him down, as these bits weren't really dog-friendly territory. Piggy is accustomed to some climbing though.

Soon we were upon the summit post, but not yet at the cache location - "another 30m to go" Mrs. LANMonkey announced. Out came the video camera to capture the moment of truth for YouTube, as Manta Rayz searched about at ground zero and made the find. We held our breath as the log book was removed from the cache...

Congrats to teammelbert - find #1000

Driving into work today & listening to the PodCacher podcast episode 415, I tuned in a bit more closely when I heard Sandy mention the name of a geocaching team I recognised as being from our neck of the woods.

In their regular section congratulating geocachers on milestones either emailed or phoned in to the PodCacher crew, the first mentioned was find #1,000 for teammelbert. The description of the find was highlighted by the fact that mel & bert (and baby melbert!) chose GC429MW "Memorial to "jrhere"" as their milestone cache. Classy move teammelbert, and congrats not only on 1,000 great memories for you all, but mention of local geocaching goodness around the world on the podcast.

PS: love the photos and the choice of going above & beyond the traditional paper sign!


Cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey

It's Not About the Numbers - Except When it is...

We try not to make a big deal about the numbers when it comes to geocaching, except for when we hit fun milestones.

Last night Mrs. LANMonkey & I were out in the rain trying to keep alive a streak of consecutive finds so that we can claim a "challenge cache" we have our eyes on.  So we made a quick find of one not too far from home, called "Swing On By!" (GC3G2TE) by JMFB.

Cute container, great little suburban location, QEF (Quick Easy Find), and that find made over-all number 850 for us, and number 300 for 2013. We thought is was cool the way those numbers aligned.

Anyhow, if you haven't found this one already (it had been dormant for a while last fall) come on and check it out - and while you're there, have a swing nearby.

As always, cache safely & cache often!
Team LANMonkey

Lynden, WA & First Event

Happy Geocaching Tuesday!

In the latest instalment of LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures we visit Lynden Washington with Manta Rayz. We explored Berthusen Park where we found a number of caches and really enjoyed the amazing beauty of that park. Then we travelled through rural Lynden picking up a few caches here and there, and then grabbed a couple of the urban ones. It was on a Sunday afternoon after church, and we could not believe how QUIET Lynden was on a Sunday in March - lots of parking for those park & grabs!

We'd really encourage anyone in the Vancouver area who hasn't visited there yet to make sure you get accross the border (with your passports!) and have fun. The border guards all seemed familiar with Geocaching and gave us no grief at all; easy trip, fun trip!

This past weekend, Mrs. LANMonkey, Manta Rayz, Piggy & I attended our first event - "In Memory of Scooby." The event was held in Fleetwood Park in Surrey and was a lot of fun. As this was our first event, we met lots of you geocaching folks, and had a great time. As it was billed as a "dog friendly" event, that made it just that much more fun!  It was a well planned and executed event, and it was great to put some faces to a number of cachers who we've heard of one way or another before.

So, as always, cache safely & cache often!
Team LANMonkey